A literary reinstatement of indigenous Gaelic cosmology Review of "Donald and His Seven Cows" by Angus Peter Campbell
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Abstract
This extended review makes the case that Angus Peter Campbell’s new novel, Donald and His Seven Cows, is a profound literary restoration of indigenous Gaelic cosmology, blending Catholic piety, Hebridean folklore, and mythic imagination to critique the dislocations of modernity. Through the quiet life of an elderly crofter whose daily mile-long circuit to graze his seven cows becomes a spiritual, communal, and cosmological journey, Campbell reanimates traditions often dismissed by ‘Celtosceptic’ scholars, showing how faerie lore, ancestral memory, and the land itself form an integrated worldview. It moves fluidly between realism and the imaginal realm, evoking lost communal rhythms and the deep structures of Gaelic spiritual imagination. Ultimately, the book stands as a significant contemporary expression of a living tradition, insisting that such ways of seeing remain vital and capable of re‑embedding modern lives.
Reviewed work:
Angus Peter Campbell, Donald and His Seven Cows (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2025)
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